What was the selection process like?
It's quite intense. First, you need to learn about it. I wasn't even under the impression that this was a thing I could apply for a few months ago. First, it's a matter of getting the Brown nomination. You work on your application starting in May, turn it in to Brown the beginning of August. There's that initial process: whether you do or do not receive the Brown stamp of approval.
You need eight letters of recommendation, then you apply to the national level and then you do or do not get an interview. I applied through Minnesota - you can either apply through the geographical locality where your college is or where your hometown is.
It's the most intimidating thing I've ever done in my life. These people are more or less deciding your future. You have seven people all firing questions at you. All seven people are extremely successful. They're all Rhodes Scholars - well, the chair of the committee is not - and giants in their fields, asking relatively difficult questions. What was nice was the questions did seem to focus on my application. For the most part, they were asking me things that I knew about.
I think the theme of the weekend was that it was over in a flash. The interview itself was only 25 minutes. It's like you walk in, and as you touch the chair that you're sitting in, the first question is fired at you.
Where were you when you found out you had been awarded the scholarship?
They announced the day of the interviews. I interviewed that morning, and then maybe six hours later, they had a decision for us.
I'm stuttering a little bit because I think I'm still doing a bit of processing. More than anything, it was a rush of disbelief. I remember sitting there and the whole ceremony was very short. They came in, we had been sitting in this room, the other finalists sitting in the room for a couple hours. They came in and said, "You know, we're not going to conduct a second round of interviews. We're ready to announce."
They gave the standard, "This has been a very difficult year to make the decision," and then they just, like, said the names. It all happened very, very quickly. The initial state was definitely shock. It's craziness.
What did your research entail at Brown?
I work with Dr. Rebecca Burwell (professor of psychology) and Dr. Jonathan Ho (a postdoctoral research associate in the cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences).
Under them, I conduct visual discrimination and decision-making research. Being able to look at an object and identify it for what it is, and then link that identification with some kind of action and follow through with that action.
I work (with) rats, probing those circuits, trying to figure out what goes wrong in a situation where you're attempting to identify an object and make a decision based on that information, but you make the incorrect decision.
Will you be continuing that work at Oxford?
I'll be doing neuroscience to a certain extent, not the same work I'm doing now. I will likely do the Master's and then go into a (PhD)program.
I'm more interested in brain-computer interfaces. Being able to read out motor imagery from somebody's thoughts, either a quadriplegic or paraplegic, being able to train a computer to read those thoughts as actual movements and then transform that into an actual action like a prosthetic arm. That's the kind of stuff I'm really interested in on the neuroscience side.
The other half of my proposal for the Rhodes is closely studying science communication. Science writing, policy questions that relate to open access to academia - that's going to be going on outside the lab.
What have you done to celebrate?
It was also my birthday on Monday. I actually share a birthday with my stepdad, so he and I were both celebrating that, and obviously I was also celebrating this. So our Thanksgiving party was really great. It's been a really wonderful couple of days.
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